Vicky Pryce came downstairs to find Chris Huhne standing with a pen in his
hand and demanding that she sign a form saying she was guilty of his
speeding offence, a court heard.

She said her name had already been filled in and she realised she had "absolutely no choice" but to do what her then-husband was asking.

Miss Pryce, 60, said she had been "worn down" by Huhne, 58, over a period of time and eventually agreed to accept his speeding penalty points so he could keep his driving licence.

However, she felt "really, really furious" at the former Cabinet Minister's "morally repugnant" behaviour, and it remained a bone of contention between them for many years.

Southwark Crown Court heard that Huhne was clocked speeding on the M11 in Essex on March 12 2003, at a time when he was seeking nomination as the Lib-Dem candidate for the winnable seat of Eastleigh in Hampshire.

Greek-born Miss Pryce, one of Britain's leading economists, said her former husband wanted to avoid losing his licence because it would affect his chances of being chosen as the prospective parliamentary candidate, and so asked her to take the points.

"I knew, of course, immediately that I had not driven the car and, of course, had not incurred the penalty," she said

"But also I resisted. I had absolutely no wish to take on his points because I knew full well he was a very, very fast driver and very often ignored speed limits and had brought it on himself."

Miss Pryce said the couple argued about the issue for "a number of days", with Huhne telling her she would be to blame if it ended his political career and claiming that a constituency aide had taken his points in the past, but then it "went quiet".

Shortly afterwards she received an official envelope addressed to her which contained a letter saying she had been nominated as the driver of her husband's car when it was caught speeding.

She told the court that she "exploded", telling Huhne: "'What is going on?' I said, 'I am not doing this, I am not signing anything, these are not my points."

Miss Pryce left the letter in the hallway of their house, but a few days later she was called downstairs to find Huhne waiting for her.

She recalled: "My husband was standing by the form which actually I had just left and abandoned myself on the table, with a pen in his hand, saying, 'You have absolutely got to sign that. If you don't, the implications will be considerable. It's ridiculous you're not signing it, just sign here'."

Miss Pryce said her name was already filled in and she just had to sign at the bottom.

Wearing a flower-patterned scarf with a black jacket and a dark purple skirt, she told the jury: "I looked at this and realised I had absolutely no choice. I was already nominated. It looked like a complete fait accompli for me and for him.

"I had been worn down over a period of time and it looked to me like it was the only thing I could possibly do.

"It didn't look to me like I had any choice at all in the matter so I took this pen and signed, protesting all the time, but I did it."

The court heard that in 2003 Miss Pryce told Constance Briscoe, a neighbour who was a lawyer and part-time judge, that Huhne had forced her to take the points.

However, the speeding points episode did not become public until Miss Pryce revealed it to Isabel Oakeshott, the political editor of The Sunday Times, in 2011 after her marriage to Huhne had broken down, the jury was told.

Miss Pryce, from Clapham, south London, denies perverting the course of justice and is using the defence of marital coercion, whereby wives can claim that they were deprived of their freedom to choose by their husbands.